


No Pressure

by liliaeth



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), iZombie (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, POV Outsider, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 14:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16285997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliaeth/pseuds/liliaeth
Summary: Penelope Garcia's first encounter with a 'zombie', wasn't one like from the movies. Instead it was her behind her computer, and a tiny whitehaired dead girl driven in from Seattle.All they had to do was figure out if zombies were still human.No pressure, right?





	No Pressure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Redrikki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/gifts).



Penelope sat staring at the loading van, a lump forming in her throat. Guards stood ready, waiting for them. She knew that it was just precautions. That the person inside the van had come willingly. But after all they’d heard about Seattle, this was the only way the person inside the van had been allowed to be brought here.

She knew that Rossi and Reid had wanted to go to Seattle itself. But with all the talk about the quarantine, and the riot that happened last month, any chance of that had been squashed.

She stared up at the woman standing next to Rossi.

Peyton Charles, the interim mayor of Seattle, after the cities elected mayor had been murdered in a video gone viral. The prison van opened to a second cell that was locked as well.

Penelope was terrified. The ‘person’ inside the van was an actual zombie, maybe not like ‘the walking Dead’ kind of zombie, but still a braineating zombie, and…

She felt Luke put his hand on her shoulder, trying to give her some support. She was still panicking.

It wasn’t even like she had to come close to the thing. She was sitting safely behind her computer in a separate room. But her friends were out there with a monster from literal horror movies.

Emily signed a paper, accepting delivery. And only then did the guards on the van open the second door. It opened, and the first she heard was the clinging of chains. And then something started moving in the dark, something… someone.

The monster looked… like a girl, a woman. About Penelope’s own size if she had to make a guess. She looked tiny, her hair was a platinum blonde, which even knowing it was a symptom of zombieism made her look cute rather than dangerous. “She doesn’t look like a monster.” She whispered.

“Technically the ‘zombies’ in Seattle aren’t monsters. They are people infected with an virus that I’s a version of Necrosis. They merely require a certain part of human brains to retain their proper brain function.”

“They’re still cannibals.” Luke spat out.

“Not voluntarily so.”

“Freeze.” One of the guards yelled. The girl, the zombie, obeyed, she looked like a kid playing Statues her arm barely stretched out.”

“Martin.”

“It was grabbing for me.” The guard offered, his voice shaking.

“She was stretching out, you idiot. What would you do after being locked in a small van like that?”

Peyton Charles glared at him.

“Thanks for coming Liv.”

“No problem. Man, are they always this tense?”

“I know, right?”

“David Rossi, this is Doctor Liv Moore. One of my best friends, assistant medical examiner for the Seattle PD,. and one of the first people to be infected with the Necrosis virus. She agreed to help us with this psychological examination to prove that not all ‘zombies’ are monsters.”

“I appreciate your willingness to cooperate, Miss Moore.”

“My pleasure.”

“Is there anything we can do to make things more comfortable for you, before we start the tests?”

The girl looked down. “I’m sure Peyton told you…”

“We’ve arranged for something to eat for you. Both braintubes and other sources.”

Penelope felt gross just thinking about the medically released brains currently sitting in the lab, waiting to be cut up and eaten. And wondering if this was what the people who signed the donor forms had meant to happen to their brain.

The zombie girl nodded, she looked tiny, but size didn’t matter with the undead. Or so dozens of horror movies had told her.

Chains rattled, and Penelope just flinched at the sound.

She didn’t think she’d ever stop feeling scared.

The zombie, Liv, followed her guards out of sight, and Penelope ~~,~~ tried to touch the lucky charm on her keychain to calm herself. She needed to watch about a dozen videos of cute animalsto handle this.

 

 

*****  
  


 

Liv sat down in the small cell slash apartment she’d been given for the duration of her stay.

Where did they think she was going to go anyway? Did they think she was going to try and escape? And if so, why?

But then again, people outside of Seattle probably had a lot of wrong ideas about what zombies were like, discrimination abounded. It’s why she was here, to correct that view, and make it clear that, some nutjobs aside, most zombies were just normal people trying to live their lives, work their jobs, take care of their families.

There was a small kitchen, and she noticed the brain in the middle of the fridge. She cut of a few pieces, and started frying it as quick snacks, best she could do with the limited tools available.

She took a quick bite and almost immediately felt the need for sugar overcome her. She checked the cupboard and started looking for baking tools. Mincing the brains and adding them to the dough, resulting in a nice set of brain waffles with hot sauce topping.

By the time Peyton showed up, she was just about ready.

“Sorry it took me so long to get here, I just had to spend a few hours explaining about the influence of brains on zombies,” Peyton just marched into the cell, not giving one fuck about the guard’s horror at her doing so, “and why knowing as much as they can about the brain they gave you will make them understand the impact it’ll have on you.”

“Cool.”

Liv took a bite of her first waffle, and pushed some non-brainy baking at Peyton, before her friend tried to take any of Liv’s.”

“I’m surprised they let you come in here without some kind of full body anti contamination suit or something?”

“They almost didn’t.” Peyton chuckled as she leaned against the door. “Til I reminded them that I’d been around zombies for the past year or two without getting turned.”

“What? Did they think you built up some kind of immunity for it?”

The two of them rolled their eyes.

“So how’s this thing supposed to go anyway? I’d have thought there’d be more psychologists or something.”

“This isn’t just a psychological review, Liv. It’s the BAU. They mostly profile murderers and serial killers.”

“What?” Liv didn’t get it.

“The intention is for them, esp. Dr Lewis who’s an expert on criminal psychology, to check you for signs of sociopathy and or psychotic tendencies. To see if zombies are naturally violent or not, or if they become that way once feeding on human brains.”

“How do they plan to figure that out in a study that lasts only a week?”

“I have no idea either. But the senate would only allow a study for a week. If you can’t convince them that zombies aren’t the biggest threat to humanity ever ~~,~~ …”

“They’ll lock up Seattle.”

“Or worse.”

Liv took a deep swallow. “So no pressure. Great.”

A sudden memory flash hit her, of watching in the mirror as she was binging on a bag of candy.

A woman, staring at herself, and the papers she was working on. “No pressure, just the entire future of my job. I can handle it.”

Liv flashed back to the present, and Peyton stared at her.

“It’s nothing, just…”

“It’ll be fine Liv. You’re the least psychotic person I know, zombie or otherwise.”

“No pressure.”

Liv stared at the cell, the grey walls.

“None at all.”

 

 

********  
  


 

Garcia watched the computer screen as Tara talked to the zombie girl, as the girl filled in test after test, chewing her pencil, chewing some of the baking she’d made.

Baking that apparently had human brains in it. Human brains from a murder victim who’d volunteered her brain for science after her death.

Darcy Simmons ~~.~~ , a business woman who’d been murdered. And now she was being eaten and they were letting it happen because she was the least violent person whose brain they had immediate access to.

Mayor Charles said that zombies were influenced by the brains of the people they ate. Garcia couldn’t help but wonder if that was the case, then how much could they even figure out. Except that they had the results of personality tests Darcy Simmons had taken, and they were now testing those results with those of the white haired zombie girl in front of them.

Garcia wasn’t even sure what she was doing here.

They’d told her to look into all the statistics of zombie crime in Seattle and into Liv Moore’s past.

And all she could see was a woman who’d apparently been solving murders-and lots of them-in the past year. Garcia wasn’t a profiler herself, even if she did hang out with a lot of them but somehow she had to keep reminding herself that this girl, this tiny girl, was a potential threat.  Like that little girl in slippers that they’d started the Walking Dead off with, just less gross.

“What happens if…”

“If things go bad?” Reid asked.

Garcia nodded.

“You don’t want to know.”

No pressure, none at all.

Garcia smiled as the zombie girl nicked a few bon bons from a tray Garcia had left behind on Rossi’s suggestion.

They were one of the few kinds of candy Darcy Simmons hadn’t liked. The zombie girl took one bite, made a face and then pushed them away.

Tara pushed another set of tests her way. Liv lifted her pencil from behind her ear and started filling out the test. It was the third test in less than a day.

Darcy Simmons had loved taking tests like these.

Would she have enjoyed knowing that her brain would influence someone else making tests while affected by her?

The girl sat down gingerly, as if she expected to drag a lot of weight with her as she took a better seat. Another test ~~,~~ and another test.

“No pressure.” Garcia could hear her whisper.

No pressure. Easier said than done.

 

 

The end


End file.
